Anthony Robbins is the embodiment of the personal transformation guru. In the US at least, where it would be difficult not to have seen one of his TV infomercials, he is a household name. He has personally coached presidents, royalty, top sports stars and corporate leaders, and has reached huge new audiences through a combination of legendary personal energy and marketing prowess. Other self-help titans like Chopra and Dyer are low-key in comparison. Lots of people are willing to pay over $1000 to attend a Robbins weekend seminar, which feature walks across hot coals and hysteria normally seen at rock concerts.

Awaken the Giant begins with Robbins in a jet helicopter on his way to a sell-out seminar. Below he spots the building where, a decade before, he was working as a janitor, and remembers the Robbins of that period: overweight, broke and lonely. Now svelte, happily married, and a millionaire with a mansion by the sea, this is the moment Robbins realizes he is living his dream.

Robbins' first book, written while still in his mid-twenties, was Unlimited Power. Itself a bestseller, Unlimited Power laid the groundwork for its successor, revealing the source of many of Robbins' methods: Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).

NLP was pioneered by John Grinder and Richard Bandler, and arose out of the study of how language, verbal and non-verbal, can affect the nervous system. Its premise is that we can control our nervous system so that our responses and actions, though seeming to be 'natural', are in fact programmed. The genius of Robbins has been to refine and market NLP to a general audience. The Robbins catchphrase 'Change happens in an instant', for instance, comes directly from NLP.

Awaken The Giant gets the reader's imagination going by the questions it asks, the possibilities it creates in your mind. Robbins is the master of unlimitedness, yet the book is careful to provide the practical steps and details for goal-achievement.

People can be turned off by the superman aura around the book and its conviction that the fantasy we might have about ourselves can be realised. To a critic, everything is about 'achieving your goals'. True, some people may use Robbins' mental technology to achieve banal materialistic ends, but what he actually says challenges the very hold of materialism in our lives. The core of his philosophy is defying the culture that surrounds us by refusing to be just another mole, burrowing away at our job so we can keep in step. In his world, everyone should be amazing. To pursue a dream is the only way of keeping ourselves truly alive, and money is always secondary to that.

The enduring value of Robbins' big book is getting people to 'step over the edge': change their beliefs about themselves, get them to move on from jobs or relationships which do nothing for them, and instill an ethic of unlimited potential.

Awaken The Giant has been called 'plastic surgery for the mind', meaning if you're not happy with your identity, change it. Though that idea will sound far-fetched or even distasteful to one person, the reassurance that it is possible can be a lifeline for another. Re-invention is a basis of American culture, and Awaken the Giant could not have surfaced in any other place. This is the Statue of Liberty in words.